17. Scarlet Sage
Scarlet Sage
By the time Sheriff Bentley arrives thirty minutes later, the adrenaline has thinned enough for the damage to look less shocking.
Wes has replaced the greenhouse latch with one from his field kit, tested every first-floor window, and moved my cracked clay planter from the porch steps to block the side path.
Roman has collected the evidence and coaxed me into drinking water with the gentle persistence of a man who understands I will bite if he calls it care.
I stand by Roman on the porch while Tom climbs out of his cruiser, looking like regret learned to wear a badge.
His gaze moves over the greenhouse, the crushed marigolds, then me. “Scarlet.”
“Tom.”
He removes his hat. “I’m sorry.”
That catches me off guard. “For what?”
His expression tightens, and Roman goes alert beside me. Wes, standing near the greenhouse with a screwdriver in one hand, turns slowly.
Tom looks like he would rather walk barefoot through gator territory than explain. “The council met this morning after the bakery incident.”
“The bakery incident,” I say. “Funny. I remember it as an omega bond distortion event.”
“I know what you saw.”
“No, Tom. You know what people are saying I saw.”
He exhales. “They’re recommending you avoid festival events until the investigation concludes.”
My throat goes dry. A recommendation is Sweetheart Haven’s favorite way of making cruelty sound polite. “They want me out of town.”
“They want panic contained.”
The words sting.
Wes steps closer. “That recommendation has no legal force.”
Tom’s gaze shifts to him. “No.”
“Then be clear when you say it.”
The two men look at each other across my ruined marigolds, one carrying the weight of a frightened town and the other the look of an alpha protecting his omega. The protectiveness in it nearly brings me to my knees.
Tom looks away first. “It isn’t enforceable,” he says to me. “But businesses may refuse service during festival preparation if they believe your presence creates a disturbance.”
My laugh comes out too thin. “So no public exile, just community-supported starvation.”
Roman’s hand brushes mine. “No one is refusing you food,” he says adamantly.
The warmth beneath the words settles under my skin.
Tom shifts. “There’s more.” He reaches into his folder and removes an old photocopy in a plastic sleeve, yellowed at the edges and faded but readable.
I recognize my grandmother’s handwriting and my pulse turns heavy. “Where did you get that?”
“Old incident file. Bond collapse from 1998.” He holds it carefully. “It was attached to a witness statement.”
Wes moves to my other side.
The note shows a hand-drawn white ribbon beside two names I don’t recognize.
Beneath them, my grandmother’s tight script reads Bond deterioration severe.
Emotional translation within the bond is distorted and unreliable.
Release gathering recommended. The world narrows to those sentences.
She knew those words, or words close enough that reading them feels less like a discovery and more like finding a missing chapter in a book I thought I understood.
Wes reads over my shoulder. His cedar scent deepens, steady rather than sharp.
Tom lowers the page. “I’m not saying she did anything wrong.”
“No,” I say. “You’re only bringing me a file that makes my dead grandmother look like she was hiding the same problems we’re finding now.”
He winces.
Good. He deserves it.
A truck rattles up the driveway before he can answer.
Pepper Vines parks and climbs out, carrying a plastic tub against one hip. Her dark curls are piled on top of her head, and mud streaks one shin below her cut-off overalls.
Her dark-brown eyes sweep the greenhouse, the sheriff, the investigators, and me. “Oh, hell no.”
I point toward Tom. “Official meeting.”
She points at the greenhouse. “Felony.”
“Technically vandalism.”
“Emotionally, it’s a felony.”
Roman looks delighted despite the circumstances. “I like her.”
“She has that effect, until she starts explaining algae.”
Pepper drops the tub onto my porch table. “Speaking of algae, I brought results.”
Every bit of humor leaves the porch.
Wes sets down the screwdriver.
Pepper pulls out reports, sample photographs, and hand-labeled collection charts. “I ran ordinary samples from my bio collection: marsh grass, algae, water, cattail roots, and pond muck from three collection points.”
“And?” Wes asks.
Pepper looks at me first. “They all show trace compounds I didn’t expect to find. I need to compare them directly with your lab report before I can say more.”
Roman takes the top sheet. “The concentrations are low.”
“Low, but present at multiple sites.”
Wes studies the map. “Enough to justify broader environmental testing.”
Pepper nods. “Yes. Not enough to tell us the source or how long it has been there.”
Tom looks from Pepper’s reports to the vandalized greenhouse, then back at me. “This may be bigger than the theft,” he says.
“Yes,” Wes replies.
Tom exhales and runs a hand along the brim of his hat. “Damn it.”
“That the official sheriff’s position?” I ask.
His mouth pulls at one corner without becoming a smile. “For now.”
Roman taps the edge of Pepper’s map. “The east marsh should be sampled before festival traffic spreads farther into the water routes.”
Tom looks toward the swamp. “I can’t authorize deputies into protected marsh without paperwork, not that fast.”
“No one asked you to,” Wes says.
Tom cuts his gaze back to him. “I’m also not going to pretend I don’t know where you’re headed.”
I step between them before the porch turns into an alpha pissing contest. “Tom.”
He looks at me.
“I’m going whether you like it or not.”
His voice lowers. “That’s what worries me.”
His sincerity hurts as much as his suspicion.
Tom folds the photocopy back into his folder. “I’ll log the vandalism and keep the council off your porch as long as I can.”
“As long as you can,” I say.
“That’s the best I’ve got.” He steps off the porch, then pauses near the bottom stair. “Scarlet.”
I brace myself.
“If you find proof your grandmother knew more than she told people, don’t hide it because it hurts.”
The words land cruelly because they aren’t meant to be.
Roman’s thumb moves once across my knuckles.
I lift my chin. “I learned a long time ago that hiding things doesn’t stop this town from inventing worse.”
Tom nods once. “Be careful out there.”
Then he heads toward the greenhouse, radio in hand, leaving the rest of us on the porch with Pepper’s reports and the swamp waiting beyond the trees.
The moment he is out of easy hearing range, the strength drains from my shoulders.
“Before we turn this porch into a command center,” Wes says, “you need a minute.”
“I’m fine.”
Pepper snorts.
I glare at her. “Your support is overwhelming.”
Wes steps in front of me. “Scarlet.” His voice is quiet, stripped of the authority he used with Tom.
I look up.
“Can I scent you? I think it will make us both feel better.”
Heat rises beneath my skin, despite the ruined garden and my grandmother’s note sitting ten feet away. “Yes.”
He moves slowly. One hand settles at my waist while he lowers his face to the curve between my neck and shoulder. His cheek brushes my skin, then my hair, cedar spreading warm and deep over me. My heart softens so quickly, my knees nearly follow.
Wes doesn’t comment. His mouth presses once below my ear, brief and warm. When he lifts his head, Roman is still holding my hand. I tug him closer. He understands without making me explain. His lips touch my temple, then the back of my hand. Cardamom settles over the cedar.
Pepper looks toward the swamp with exaggerated interest. “Done?” she asks after a respectful pause.
“No,” I say.
Roman laughs against my hair. The sound loosens the last tight place in my chest.
“Now I’m done.” I step back.
Wes’s thumb moves once at my waist before he releases me.
He takes a marker and spreads Pepper’s map over the porch table. “Roads don’t explain the sample locations.”
He circles three sites: the springs, the old sweetheart path, and the east marsh. Then he draws lines through the water instead of the roads. Flood channels, old fishing cuts, and routes that open during rainy season and vanish when the water drops.
I point before thinking. “That channel connects farther east. It doesn’t show on the current map because the county filled part of it, but the water opens again during flood season.”
Roman leans closer. “So someone could move between these areas without using the main road?”
“If they knew the timing and the old cuts.”
“We need a boat,” Roman says.
Pepper makes a face. “Deputies get lost near designated picnic areas.”
Tom’s voice carries from the greenhouse. “I heard that.”
“Consider it citizen feedback on the need for wilderness training,” Pepper calls back. She looks at us. “Luckily, I know a guy.”
Ten minutes later, Ollie Crane answers Pepper’s call on speaker, his voice too cheerful for the occasion. “Pepper Vines. Tell me this is gossip related, because I heard—”
“Ollie, I need an airboat.”
“For science or bad decisions?”
I lean closer to the phone. “Both.”
A pause. Then, delighted, he says, “Scarlet Sage?”
“The notorious.”
“Finally. I was starting to think the swamp would have to set itself on fire to get you on one of my boats.”
Wes looks at the phone as if it personally offended him.
Pepper smiles. “Can you meet us at Crane Water Tours in twenty?”
“For you? Fifteen.”
The call ends.
Wes looks at me, the ruined flowers, and the greenhouse. His gaze moves through the property like it’s still a crime scene he hasn’t finished securing. “Roman stays behind until I finish the security cameras.”
“You brought cameras?”
“I brought equipment.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the one you’re getting.”
Roman takes the marker from him. “I’ll stay, set the temporary cameras, and compare Pepper’s reports with the lab material. You take Scarlet and coordinate with Ollie.”
My body approves of the plan before my pride can argue. With Wes beside me and Roman holding down the house, my instincts settle.
Wes’s voice lowers. “You don’t have to do this today.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Scarlet.”
“The town is trying to turn me into the answer. Pepper found strange compounds in the swamp, and someone painted ‘Bondbreaker’ on my greenhouse. I need to do this. If there’s a route through that water, I know the old channels.”
He holds my gaze. Then he nods. It’s a gesture of respect.
Five minutes later, I climb into Wes’s truck with dirt beneath my nails, cedar and cardamom on my skin, and the cold weight of my grandmother’s handwriting folded inside my thoughts.
Roman installs a camera on my porch as we pull away.
It makes leaving home feel like part of it is coming with me, and the rest is staying behind to guard the door.